Wednesday, 7 August 2013

Most of the characters in Drive were psychopaths; some
people want to believe that Driver (Gosling) starts off a reasonably nice guy
and descends into a violent hell as events conspire against him. Director
Nicholas Winding Refn plays a clever game however; in the first section he
gives us the likeable, charismatic superstar Gosling and shows us him falling,
with his childlike grin (watch those smiles again though and see if you detect
how disturbing they are – isn’t there is something cocky and smug about him?)
for a normal likeable young woman and her son. The scene in the diner dispels
the illusion however. Driver, confronted by a past client threatens to smash
his teeth down his throat. He is already used to violence and is ready to use
it; and use it he does.

More than anything
Drive is a critique of and rumination on noir – not just the Hollywood noirs of
the 40s but the violent existential crime thrillers of the 60s and 70s like
Point Blanc, The Getaway and Le Samourai. In most of those films it was usually
possible to retain some kind of sympathy for their protagonists, not least
because the best of them starred some of the greatest screen presences ever –
Mitchum, MacMurray, Marvin, McQueen, Delon and De Niro. It was much easier to
believe in the fatalistic romance of noir because lots of the violence was
hidden and the pathologies of the protagonists were obscured or softened. In
Drive Winding Refn doesn’t really allow us a way out. Gosling plays Driver less
as a man and more as a hollowed out child and, Winding Refn seems to be saying,
if you don’t acknowledge the emptiness, brutality and desperation of this
world, you’re lying to yourself; or reading my film the wrong way.

Now imagine a film
with many of the same preoccupations but stripped of any consolation (well,
perhaps that’s overstating it: Kristin Scott Thomas is ‘stand up and watch me’
astonishing and Winding Refn’s direction takes us to the far reaches of the
avant-garde film spectrum). Imagine a film where ALL the characters ARE
psychopaths without any fear of confusion. Gosling was laconic and reticent in
Drive; now he’s virtually mute. His character’s horizons don’t reach far beyond
sex and violence as the dream sequences make clear. As a man he is a spent
force; damaged beyond repair by brutality and madness. Gone too is any sense of
excitement – this is a slow film with all audience expectations deliberately
denied. The fights are seen in middle distance using a fixed camera so that you
are forced to watch with detachment. Humour is absent (except for the scene
where the policeman Chang tortures a bad guy and I’m not sure it’s meant to be
funny!) and there is no one to root for – Chang is the vile Old Testament God
and Mai is barely a character at all.

Or were you secretly rooting for Gosling’s
Julian?

Maybe you can. One
of the most important differences between the two films is that Julian has a
past (we know nothing about Driver’s past remember) – and what a brutal fucked
up past it’s been as his mum Crystal (Kristin Scott Thomas) makes clear in
every scene. This is part of Winding Refn’s challenge to us – especially the
liberals and socialists in the audience. Aren’t we supposed to understand,
forgive, reintegrate, someone like Julian? It wasn’t his fault after all that
he’s been brought up in a family of mobsters and psychologically (and, the film
hints, sexually) abused for most of his life. And it IS Ryan Gosling don’t you
know and bless him, he’s not prepared to see children murdered. And yes that could be
remorse we can see at the end of the film? But is this shell of a human being
worthy of redemption? Could he ever find purpose in life?

I doubt it. The
most he would manage would be some kind of medieval, religious, self
flagellation; forever damned.

The trouble with
Only God Forgives is not that it isn’t interesting – it is. I might go as far
as to say it’s fascinating. I’ll watch it again. The trouble is that watching
it felt like an intellectual puzzle to be solved. The obvious contrast is with
David Lynch. Lynch is also a stylist who wants us to look into the nasty,
hidden parts of society that we try to ignore, but his films grab you, draw you
into the darkness and drill down into your subconscious. Winding Refn’s work
just doesn’t have anything like the metaphorical richness of Lynch’s films.

Drive and Only God
Forgives instead need to be compared alongside the great crime and gangster
films: films that that compare and contrast the psychoses of criminals and
cops; films that examine and deconstruct the romance our society holds for such
people; films that comment on their canonical forbears. As such they are well
worth your time. However my instinct is that there is an emptiness at the heart
of both films that won’t stand the test of time.

Tuesday, 6 August 2013

Park Chan-Wook’s Vengeance trilogy is famous
for its violence and for moments where it seems to deliberately set out to
shock - as when Oh Dae-su eats a live Octopus in Oldboy. Fair enough, for some it’s just too much; for others the
violence is without purpose or too bound up with a celebration of machismo; for
others there is a strain of unacceptable nihilism that runs throughout the
trilogy. Lots of the criticism aimed at Oldboy,
especially in the US, made reference to its postmodern superficiality and it is
perhaps unsurprising that Tarantino was the President of the Jury when Oldboy won the Grand Prix at Cannes.

Still, watching them again, a number of
points stand out: first they differ markedly (and remarkably) in tone – Sympathy is stark, spare, ominous; full
of dread and anxiety. Oldboy makes
you feel uncomfortable in different ways especially in relation to its sexual
politics. More than the others it relies on plot surprises to ask the audience
to re-evaluate and reassess. Lady
Vengeance, with its Baroque sensibility, is almost optimistic in comparison,
whilst its multiple characters, slightly confusing flashback structure and its scheming
heroine ask you to make comparisons with Elizabethan revenge plays. Second,
they’re incredibly serious investigations into what it means to choose violence
and revenge and don’t baulk at exploring all the moral and psychological consequences
of those choices. Third, though the plots concentrate on individuals, the films
are aware of (Korean) society, class, inequality and injustice – not always
profoundly aware, admittedly – but enough to give you a sense that you aren’t
being asked to consider violence and vengeance as free floating concepts. Fourth,
and maybe this is too obvious, they aren’t optimistic films. Chan-Wook wants us
to have a good look at the way ‘ordinary’ people descend into brutality and
barbarity – as they do (let’s be honest), on a regular basis. Finally, though a
few moments of the violence ARE thrilling, most of it is just shocking: instead,
the cinematic pleasure of the films come from their formal coherence, their
stylistic and aesthetic invention, their weighty performances and their
discursive nature. Otherwise there are no easy pats on the back – Chan-Wook
wants you to be uncomfortable, ask uncomfortable questions and stumble for
satisfactory answers.

All three
films make you question repeatedly who, if anyone, you have sympathy for and
whether you should be feeling that sympathy. And they make you feel that these are
important questions. That’s relatively
rare in modern cinema.

In
Chan-Wook’s hands, revenge is also a tool to probe questions around
individualism; revenge is defined by self-absorption and narcissism after all. The
dilemmas of the various protagonists may have societal roots and triggers but
their responses are defined by desperation, loyalty, romantic (and familial)
love, instinct and learned behaviour.In
Sympathy there is something almost
fatalistic about the characters’ actions whereas the latter two films allow the
characters a little more space for reflection and choice. Oh Dae-su and Lee
Keum-ja learn (or are pushed into confronting) what their actions might mean:
“When my vengeance is over, can I return to the old Dae-su?” asks Oh Dae-su
with what will turn out to be the most extraordinary dramatic irony.

Watching the
films again has only made me fall for them more than ever, especially Oldboy, but it’s still Lady Vengeance that I find the most
extraordinary. Yet, it gets mixed responses with critics unhappy with the
editing and the complexity of the structure, and with the way the film seems
split, tonally, into two distinct halves – the first somewhat jokey and cold;
the second much more serious and involving (see esp Clarke in Sight and Sound Feb 2006). Elsewhere Philip
French, in The Observer, sums it up thus: “While not an especially edifying
experience, it's one of the most exciting pictures of recent months”. I don’t
think he means exciting like the Bourne films are exciting or at least I hope
not. It is exciting in terms of its verve, imagination and seriousness. And
he’s wrong too – it’s full of intellectual and moral purpose. It asks questions
of me I’d rather not think about and elicits sympathies I don’t particularly
want to acknowledge. Indeed the film risks allying itself with right wing
ideologues in trying to pose the questions so sharply.

It’s also
incredibly moving.

A final word
on Oldboy’s sexual politics, as I’m
sure some viewers will find it too problematic. It’s hard to discuss without
giving spoilers but it is fair to say that the denouement, with all its
revelations, allows you to reappraise some of your earlier, uncomfortable
impressions. But is that enough? I doubt it.

Obviously,
if you haven’t seen the three films, I’d recommend them wholeheartedly and I'd recommend you try and watch them in fairly quick succession so you can compare and contrast. I’ll get on to some
of the other great Korean films of the Noughties another time.